Absent Voters' Project—Katherine's rare and unusual ranks

After running for the past six years, with 1000's of hours of work put into it, we have finally completed an amazing project and are ready to share the results with you. The Cheshire First World War Servicemen's Index Spring 1919 Absent Voter's Lists online (or Absent Voter's Project for short) is now complete! The 1918 and 1919 Absent Voters' lists are an invaluable resource for anyone seeking ancestors serving in the First World War. Absent Voters' lists give names and addresses, details of individuals' service, service number, unit or ship. With the help of volunteers, these lists have been transcribed and are fully searchable.
You can find the site here and a walk through of how to use the site is on our YouTube channel here. These coming blogs are written by our volunteers who made this possible and give an insight into what they enjoyed about the project.

Working on the Absent Voters Lists for 1919 has immersed the volunteers in the world of the men and a few women, who were registered to vote during the First World War but who were not at home to do so. The database records names, addresses, ranks, regimental numbers and units for members of all the forces. This means that it should also be possible to search not just for the family member you are researching but other force members in their household at the time. Some families I transcribed sent three or four sons to war.

Three of the same family sent to war

Between the Cheshire Archive volunteers thousands of entries have been transcribed. Some of the most common ranks in Cheshire feature Private, Corporal, Lieutenant, Able Seaman, Air Mechanic and Gunner whilst the rarer ones are Artist, Writer and Bandsman. Some of the common units feature the Cheshire Regiment, Royal Engineers, Royal Field Artillery, Royal Garrison Artillery, Royal Army Medical Corps, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. The less common ones that I transcribed were the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, a camel corps and the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. The women, numbering less than five, that I transcribed, were nurses or matrons in the Royal Army Medical Corps. An overview of the Cheshire lists shows the enormous range of ranks and units from every corner, offering insight into the enormous contribution made by our county.  

A nurse's details are listed

Being part of the Absent Voters project has been fascinating. Hopefully the newly transcribed records will provide vital information for anyone interested in researching a family member who served a hundred years ago, in the Great War.   

This project was funded by Cheshire East Reflects.

Absent Voters' Project— Mike and Military History

After running for the past six years, with 1000's of hours of work put into it, we have finally completed an amazing project and are ready to share the results with you. The Cheshire First World War Servicemen's Index Spring 1919 Absent Voter's Lists online (or Absent Voter's Project for short) is now complete! The 1918 and 1919 Absent Voters' lists are an invaluable resource for anyone seeking ancestors serving in the First World War. Absent Voters' lists give names and addresses, details of individuals' service, service number, unit or ship. With the help of volunteers, these lists have been transcribed and are fully searchable.
You can find the site here and a walk through of how to use the site is on our YouTube channel here. These coming blogs are written by our volunteers who made this possible and give an insight into what they enjoyed about the project.

LOOKING FOR A FIRST WORLD WAR SERVICEMAN'S RECORD?

When you first start to researching your ancestors military history during WWI, why is it so difficult to obtain their official service records? The conflict took place just over one hundred years ago; so surely these documents would be the most detailed set of records of an individual that you will find anywhere! Unfortunately even the resources of the modern internet do not provide this facility. The truth is that most soldiers’ service records dating from the First World War were sadly destroyed by Luftwaffe raids on the old Public Record Office during the London blitz. Only a few records survived the bombing and fire damage caused to the record office. Consequently information on ordinary servicemen’s files is very limited.

A sample of the extra information you can find in the lists

 

My Grandfather served as a soldier during the Great War of 1914 - 1918, but I had no information to start with; apart from his known address. I began my search with the Absent Voters List (AVL) at the Cheshire Record Office, and this document provided me with his rank, service number, unit and division in which he served. Eureka! This was the start of an unimaginable story of a hero. That is why I volunteered to help with transcribing the Absent Voters List.

Teaming up with other distance transcribers working on this project unlocks priceless data for both amateur and professionals alike. In the pursuit of military, family, and local history studies it has become a valuable asset as an online research tool.

Mike

Mike

Distance Transcriber.

This project was funded by Cheshire East Reflects.

Absent Voters' Project— Tina's Experience

After running for the past six years, with 1000's of hours of work put into it, we have finally completed an amazing project and are ready to share the results with you. The Cheshire First World War Servicemen's Index Spring 1919 Absent Voter's Lists online (or Absent Voter's Project for short) is now complete! The 1918 and 1919 Absent Voters' lists are an invaluable resource for anyone seeking ancestors serving in the First World War. Absent Voters' lists give names and addresses, details of individuals' service, service number, unit or ship. With the help of volunteers, these lists have been transcribed and are fully searchable.
You can find the site here and a walk through of how to use the site is on our YouTube channel here. These coming blogs are written by our volunteers who made this possible and give an insight into what they enjoyed about the project.

My name is Tina and I have been volunteering on the Absent Voters project for 2 years. As a qualified archivist I always get involved in as many projects as I can but I also have a keen interest in history of the World Wars and have volunteered on projects such as the Merchant Navy Crew List transcription project and Operation War Diaries, so this project really appealed to me.

Tina

I have submitted entries for mostly the Wirral parishes, starting with Irby, where I live. I was struck by the socio-economic information the pages offer for their parish. For example, Thurstaston had very few entries and there were several Officers, compared with larger towns where there many more entries with a wide variety of ranks, but a lot of Privates and Labourers

It was interesting spotting a few women included in the list serving in nursing roles such as Laura Ellen Tuson of Silverdale Road, Lower Bebington who was serving in an auxiliary hospital in Myrtle Street Liverpool, and Violet Baxter of Thornburn Road, New Ferry, who was serving at 1^st Southern General Hospital, Birmingham.

I've enjoyed learning all of the units and regiments and ranks/roles in the British Armed Forces and seeing the wide variety of units Wirral and Cheshire men entered.

Cecil Arbuthnot St. George Moore

There were also some fantastic names. Cecil Arbuthnot St. George Moore, a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, was just one that I couldn't help researching further.

This project was funded by Cheshire East Reflects.

Medieval Deeds Project

Searching the word ‘deed’ on our online catalogue brings up over 1500 results. Each of these results could relate to a single item or to an entire collection of numerous boxes.

Due to the vast amount of deeds we have, we decided to make them more readily accessible to researchers. The plan was to digitise the deeds and improve the description of them, with the resulting output then added to our catalogue. Catalogue searches would be more effective and show up more detailed results. The catalogue could direct users to exactly the right deed and also provide a digital image of it- perfect for people who can’t make it into the search room. Having the deeds digitised also reduces the need to produce the original, and reduces the handling of these items when in a number of cases a digital surrogate is enough.

The plan was to digitise the deeds and improve the description of them.

The decision was taken to start the process with our Medieval Deeds. These are mostly written in Latin, so extracting key pieces of information from them would be of most benefit to the average user with little to no knowledge of the language. 

DCH_J75_2 one of our first completed deeds.

Due to the specialist knowledge needed to read and understand Latin and the writing style (palaeography) we decided to seek out people with this skill. To enable as broad an array of people as possible to help us with this, we decided to use a digital platform, from which we created a digital collaboration project. A fully digital project allows people to volunteer from their own home and in their own time.

After some research, we chose Trello to build our project on. Trello is a free online tool designed to assist collaborative working; assigning members of the team different tasks which can be seen by all. It allows multiple people to log in simultaneously from wherever they are. The layout is similar to a Kanban board, where you move items to the right as they progress through the workflow (far left is items pending, far right is items completed). This fit in well with our plan for the project.

Current screenshot from the project.

If you want to see this platform in action please watch our YouTube video. We are still relatively early on in this process and looking for more volunteers to help to push it forward.

The particular deeds in this project are characterised by the fact that they are made of parchment (stretched and scraped animal skins) and display a variety of seals and seal attaching techniques. They are primarily written in iron gall ink. The longevity of parchment documents means that they survive today in remarkable condition however extra care needs to be taken with the sometimes brittle and fragmented wax seals.

Close-up of one of the seals from the DCH Collection.

The Medieval Deeds digitised for this project are taken from our DCH collection, “Title deeds and leases, Cheshire and elsewhere, 12th century - c1900”, specifically DCH/J- Deeds relating to various Townships. 

Before digitising, any folded deeds were flattened and restored where necessary by our in-house conservation department. We have now digitised around 500 of the Medieval Deeds in our collection.

Currently, all these deed images are uploaded to Trello and our volunteers can choose from them and allocate one to themselves. The volunteer then translates the key sections of the deed and moves it onto the next stage. We don’t ask for a full transcription- just for essential information to be extracted and translated into English. This mainly consists of names, dates and locations but also costs involved and relationships between named people.

At this point, a different volunteer takes over and quality checks the description and adds their comments if required. The information is then checked a further time before being passed over to our in-house Latin specialist for final verification. When a batch of deeds has been completed, we will upload the images and results of the project onto our catalogue. This will be done intermittently until all deeds are finalised.

If you have a thorough understanding of Latin and feel that you could help us, please get in touch for more information at recordoffice@cheshiresharedservices.gov.uk

All you require is an email address; computer and internet access to get started. Some of our volunteers even visit their local library to get internet access and assist us! All work is undertaken at a time and place convenient to you. There is no minimum number of hours required to help out.

In time, this will make the whole of DCH/J easier to search and increase the value and knowledge which can be gained from these manuscripts.

Want to know more about this project? See more:

On YouTube:
Discovering Deeds Playlist 

On our blog:
Deeds Indeed

Buzzing about books

I spent around a year working on the rare book collection as a volunteer for Cheshire Archives & Local Studies. The aim of the project was to describe all the items in detail so they could be catalogued and made available to anybody who wants to look at them.  The books themselves are varied to say the least.  There are of course a large amount of books that relate to the county of Cheshire, and so many about Chester that if you read them all you could be considered the number one expert! 

Some unusual things have also found their way into the exclusive club that is the rare book collection.  I came across ‘Clog Shop Chronicles’ by John Ackworth, containing stories about life in a fictional Lancashire village and written in 19^th century Bolton dialect. My favourite book, however, has to be ‘Buzz a Buzz, or The Bees’ by W. C. Cotton (Vicar of Frodsham), complete with gorgeous illustrations and a humorous story. I admit I forgot my volunteering duties and spent a good thirty minutes reading it!

The Queen Bee                                                        Ref: 014097

It was wonderful to volunteer for such a fantastic project and getting to touch and browse the marvelous array of materials is something that I don’t have the opportunity to do normally.  However it was so much more than looking at pretty pictures, stunning maps and reading interesting facts - it was the chance to acquire new skills.  By giving up four hours of my time every fortnight I had the opportunity to acquire cataloguing skills and experience, which will help me in my future career as a librarian.

I would encourage anyone to browse the local studies catalogue for rare books and see what wonderful gems pop up that might be useful for your research, or to simply while away an afternoon reading.

by Jennifer Davies (CALS Volunteer)

Many thanks to our volunteers Jen Davies, Susan Jones, and Kathy Jones for preparing and listing over 600 items in the Rare Books Collection. The work of our volunteers is invaluable to projects like this and greatly appreciated!

The collection includes published material about Cheshire between the 16^th and 20^th Centuries, as well as early works by Cheshire authors such as:

             Ranulph Higden  Polycronycon (1527, 3^rd edition)

John Speed  The historie of Great Britaine under the conquests of the Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans (1632, 3^rd edition)

John Gerard  The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes (1633, 2^nd edition)

Daniel King  The Vale-Royall of England or the County Palatine of Chester  (1656)

Peter Leycester  Historical antiquities in two books… (1673)

Randle Holme  Academy of armory and blazon (1688)

John Broster  History of the siege of Chester during the Civil Wars in the time of King Charles I (1790)

J. H. Hanshall  History of the County Palatine of Chester. Parts 1-22 (1817-1823)

                                                                                                                       Ref: 227941

Final Remarks as a Trainee

Trainees just starting out at DCDC15. Image courtesy of Emma Stagg.

I have been working at Cheshire Archives and Local Studies for the past year as a Transforming Archives Trainee and have learnt a huge amount about archives and digitisation. Unfortunately, my time here is coming to a close.

A number of Transforming Archives Trainees have begun their traineeships this year (Cohort 2 of 3); with a smaller amount in Scotland as part of Opening up Scotland’s Archives. With two official trainee meetups throughout the year and a lot more impromptu ones, we have all supported one another while early on in our careers.

Transport used inside The National Archives' building to transport documents.

Everyone undertaking the traineeship is enrolled onto a module at the University of Dundee. This module was undertaken via distance learning and I studied an Introduction to Digitisation and Digital Preservation. In fact, Transforming Archives/Opening Up Scotland’s Archives have been so successful in ensuring the new workforce is up to speed with digital preservation, that they have been shortlisted for the Award for Teaching and Communications in the Digital Preservation Awards 2016!

With a training fund available to me throughout the year, I have been able to go to a large number of conferences and courses of my choice. Naturally, the Digital Preservation Coalition’s Student Conference, was one of my first choices as it supported my distance learning course. Other courses completed include the Care of Paper and Photographic Collections and Photographing Museum Objects: both of which otherwise I would be unable to afford.

Possible hazards to consider at the Archives as part of the Care of Paper and Photographic Collections course.

The funding has also allowed me to purchase books relating to digital preservation and preventive conservation of photographs, to improve my knowledge in these areas and support my archival career.

I have become a member of the Archives and Records Association and Institute of Conservation over the course of my traineeship post; attending both of their conferences. Additionally, I am now a member of the Association for Historical and Fine Art Photography with plans to go to their conference in November after my traineeship has concluded. A number of the trainees from all three years will also be attending DCDC16 in Salford from 10^th-12^th October 2016. 

Back at Cheshire Archives, I have catalogued and re-packaged over 15,000 Local Studies items. These range from 35mm slides, to prints, glass plate negatives and original illustrations. A selection of those catalogued were digitised and uploaded onto the Cheshire image bank and I have spoken about a series of these in a previous blog post.

Selection of Local Studies slides from the 80s, showing views of Cheshire and North Wales.

After working with Local Studies, Medieval Deeds was my next project. Over 350 Medieval Deeds were digitised and are all accessible remotely for our volunteers to transcribe them from their original Latin. The goal is ultimately to add both image and transcription to our cataloguing system. This will make the whole series searchable and increase the value and knowledge which can be gained from these manuscripts. This project has just been released to volunteers and will continue under the management of the new trainee.

To tie in with the Medieval Deed transcription, I organised two days of Horrible Handwriting courses to assist the public in deciphering and making sense of the English writing on old documents. This was a successful event and also helped me to improve my palaeographical skills alongside assisting those attending.

In between these main projects, smaller ad-hoc duties have cropped up. Early in the year, I produced a blog post promoting The National Archives' Explore your Archives week which runs again this year, 19-27th November. At Christmas I photographed Chester’s Christmas Markets, which was the perfect time to capture that area of Chester. Town Hall Square will soon look a lot different with the progression of the new Northgate shopping development.

More recently, I have scanned glass negatives for Twitter and even produced a variety of visuals to be displayed at Cheshire’s Tour of Britain. The sheer range of work I have undertaken here has made it a very informative year for me!

Eastgate Clock, Chester. Glowing pink just after its refurbishment. 

You can follow the work of next year’s trainees (and take a look back at this year) via the following Twitter accounts:

@TransformingArc @CheshireRO 

And you can read a bit more about my work, and how I got here on the National Archive’s blog.

For now, I hand over to my successor Miranda Lennon and wish her and the rest of the new cohort the best of luck with the year ahead. 

'I like this beautiful land better than the old country'

Commonwealth Day 2013 celebrates 'opportunity through enterprise' and we have the evidence of journeys to and from Cheshire that young people have made in search of opportunity. In 2011-2012 we supported the Journeys to Cheshire project but our collections also witness journeys from Cheshire ...

Our Wright family of Bollington collection includes correspondence home to Cheshire as members of the same family set out to build new lives in New Zealand and Canada. The 1871 census records joiner and carpenter Alfred with his wife and young family at home in Bollington.

On 30th August 1883 Alfred and two of his sons, Charles and Phillip boarded the ‘Lady Jocelyn’ in Portsmouth. After she was damaged, put back to Portsmouth for repair for two and a half weeks, she faced bouts of atrocious weather until she arrived in New Zealand on 1st January 1884. When 18 year old Charles writes to his Aunt Mary, he comments: 

‘... do not expect to hear anything about our passage out, for my hair turns white every time I think of it. I assure you I was as thin as the shadow of a match when I landed instead of being fat’.

 In the same letter, we begin to understand more about what has motivated the men to take such risks: 

‘... all I can say is that I don’t regret coming in the least, because a working man has a chance here, while in the old country if he must live at all respectable he can’t save much.’ 

It is Charles who seems particularly taken with New Zealand. In a letter to his sister, Martha Ann, he remarks that he doesn’t want to go home. He tells her that he ‘... likes this beautiful land better then the old country’ and goes on to make a case for Martha Ann to travel to New Zealand and take advantage of the ‘... benefits of this glorious land’.

Alfred writes affectionately to his family back home, with letters dedicated to each family member individually. In a letter written to his sons, John and Samuel, back in England, Alfred describes his journey aboard the Lady Jocelyn. He writes extensively about flying fish, dolphins, porpoises, whales and even sharks - ‘... it bit a thick rope in two as easily as Martha Ann snaps her thread with her teeth’. Compared to his letters to his wife and daughter, the letter to his sons is rather more grisly in its descriptions!

The men also relate their experiences of the native population. In one instance, Charles describes a Maori work colleague as ‘... a full blooded Maori, but so well educated, he speaks the best English I ever heard...’. Alfred describes in detail what he has learned of Maori culture in a letter to his wife Ann.

But later in 1884, in a letter to his sister Mary, Alfred states that although he likes New Zealand very much, he has decided to return home to be with his family. He affectionately refers to his wife as ‘... the best of wives’. It would appear that the distance between the couple proved too much for him to bear. He returned to England with Phillip, but without Charles on 4th January 1885.

In 1886, New Zealand suffered a major volcanic eruption. The eruption of Mount Tarawera was documented by Charles in a letter to his mother and father in July 1886. He describes how the fearful eruptions at Tarawera and the Hot Lake district had resulted in ‘... great loss of life’. He goes on to say that it is believed that the worst is over and he is comparatively safe from harm. 

Charles frequently discusses national and cultural events at length, and of course continues to relay personal news to his family back home. One particularly notable event was his marriage to Leah in 1886, where he describes the event as ‘...something now worse than earthquakes, volcanoes and almost everything in the history of New Zealand’!

Although later letters home begin to suggest that unemployment was becoming an issue, not only for Charles, but for the country as a whole, and his family ‘back home in the old country’ were sorely missed, Charles Wright appeared to be settled, contented and happy with his decision to stay in New Zealand.